He Murdered Trotsky (Coronet Magazine, 1959)On the afternoon of August 20, 1940, in the Mexico City suburb of Coyoacán, Leon Trotsky (b. 1878) was murdered by Ramón Mercader (1914 - 1978). Mercader (alias Jacques Mornard) was a Spanish Communist and a Moscow-trained agent of Joseph Stalin's secret police, the NKVD.
The attached article pertains to Mercader's 20-year incarceration at the Mexican Lecumberri Penitentiary, where he was constrained in semi-luxurious accommodations, complete with a telephone, silk pajamas, a book collection, newspapers and weekly conjugal visits - courtesy of "the Worker's Paradise".
Click here to read a 1938 interview with Leon Trotsky. The Tragedy of Eugene O'Neill (Look Magazine, 1959)"In 1946, a literary statistician ascertained that, in the world of O'Neill plays, there had been 12 murders, eight suicides, 22 other deaths and seven cases of insanity"
To read the attached biographical essay is to understand that O'Neill did not become America's premiere tragedian by simply reading about the disasters in the lives of others; his entire life was a tragedy. In his wake were alcoholic, suicidal children and numerous unloved wives. They Called it ''Clouting'' (Pageant Magazine, 1959)It was said to be the lowest form of advertising - when ad copy on TV or radio productions was disguised as theatrical content. It was widespread and it was called clouting. The Institute for Reconstructive Plastic Surgery
(Coronet Magazine, 1959)During the course of the past 63 years the triumphs of The Institute of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery have been many and myriad. Established in New York in 1951, the organization was originally called The Society for the Rehabilitation of the Facially Disfigured, and they have been the pioneers in the art of tissue transplants and the aesthetic surgery movement in general.
The attached article was first seen on the pages of a 1959 issue CORONET MAGAZINE and it recalls many of their earliest achievements.
The Navy Training Film that Won A Naval Engagement (Coronet Magazine, 1959)This three page reminiscence provides an example of the persuasive power of film and it tells the tale of an important event at a small industrial building in Hollywood, California, that housed the Navy Film Services Depot between 1942 and 1945. "Taking the Offensive" was the name given to this small, low budget training film that was produced on that dusty sun-bleached street and it didn't appear to be anything terribly special to the NCOs who produced it at the time - but they learned later that their film provided a badly needed shot in the arm to the then untested officers and men of one particular heavy cruiser that was destined to tangle with three Japanese ships the next day.
Click here to read about the Battle of the Coral Sea,
'The Girl Who Struck-Out The Babe (Coronet Magazine, 1959)This article tells the tale of a 17 year-old, left-handed girl pitcher from the Volunteer State who swore that all she wanted to do in life was strike-out Babe Ruth - and she did (and Lou Gehrig and Tony Lazzeri). The Smiths in America (Pageant Magazine, 1959)We were surprised to learn that even in this multicultural era of unenforced immigration laws - the last name Smith still stands as the most common surname in the United States - and as of 2021 there are 2,627,141 people with this last name living today. This article points out that there is always at any given time a Smith serving in Congress (currently that duty falls on the shoulders of Representative Chris Smith, who hails from the 4th District of New Jersey).
Women Criminals (Pageant Magazine, 1959)"Here are the six who top the FBI list of most dangerous lady criminals-at-large; find one and you may prevent murder..."
1920s Prohibition created a criminal climate that appealed to more women than you ever might have suspected... ''The Biggest Laugh in the History of Silent Film'' (Coronet Magazine, 1959)"The longest, loudest laugh in movie history exploded in theaters all over the world in 1920. That colossal, eruptive, cumulative bellow of laughter closed a two reel silent comedy called HARD LUCK, starring that master of slapstick and deadpan pantomime, Buster Keaton." • Click here to watch the film • Cold War Politics and People of Color (Pageant Magazine, 1959)This well-illustrated article appeared in a middle class American magazine in 1959 and it reported on the rising international sentiments that signaled to the dominate Western powers that the old diplomacy of the wealthy northern nations had to change. It will help to explain why the United States re-fashioned their immigration laws in 1965.
The Department of State hated it when Radio Moscow would depict Americans as simply a bunch of "lynch-happy bigots"...
The Book that Shook the Kremlin (Coronet Magazine, 1959)How Pasternak's Russian novel, Doctor Zhivago (1957), came to be published was not your standard bourgeois affair involving manuscripts sent by certified mail to charming book agents who host long, wet lunches - quite the contrary. As the journalist noted in the attached article: It is an intriguing story involving the duplicity of one Italian communist who gleefully deceived a multitude Soviets favoring that the work be buried forever.
Guess Whose Coming to Hollywood... (Coronet Magazine, 1959)The Coronet entertainment writer was quite correct when he identified Sidney Poitier (1927 - 2022) as the first actor of African descent to earn beaucoup bucks and achieve leading-man status in dramatic rolls in Hollywood. Born and raised in the Bahamas, Poitier's predecessors in the film colony were many, but they were all song and dance men. The attached column clearly outlines what made Poitier such an actor apart.
Before there was Sidney Poitier, there was "Farina"... The Spy Who Sank the 'Royal Oak' (Coronet Magazine, 1959)The story of the German master spy who grimly plotted for sixteen years to destroy the pride of the British Navy... The Old Southern View of Integration (Pageant Magazine, 1959)In this 1959 article Alabama wordsmith Wyatt Blasingame did his level-headed best to explain the sluggish reasoning that made up the opinions of his friends and neighbors as to why racial integration of the nation's schools was a poor idea. He observed that even the proudest Southerner could freely recognize that African-Americans were ill-served by the existing school system and that they were due for some sort of an upgrade - they simply wished it wouldn't happen quite so quickly. The journalist spent a good deal of column space explaining that there existed among the Whites of Dixie a deep and abiding paranoia over interracial marriage.
Their line of thinking seems terribly alien to us, but, be assured, Southern white reasoning has come a long way since 1923...
The B-17 (Coronet Magazine, 1959)The B-17 Flying Fortress was "the most fabulous combat plane ever built. Like Douglas' unretireable DC-3 airliner, the B-17 is history written in metal, a pivot of progress which helped influence an entire generation".
"Perhaps more than any other plane, the B-17 beat Hitler. Its 640,036 tons of bombs on Europe, nearly the total dropped by all other U.S. planes combined, knocked out much of his industry, oil and railroads... The B-17 unveiled the era of strategic air power and turned man's eye to the stratosphere and beyond".
Click here to read about the P-47 fighter plane.
•• Narrated by Captain Clark Gable, this Signal Corps Film is About the B-17 in Europe •• Happy Days Are Here Again! (Pageant Magazine, 1959)In 1959 an eyewitness to American Prohibition recalled the unbridled glee that spread throughout the land when the Noble Experiment called it quits (December 5, 1933):
"The legal celebrations that were held on the first night of repeal were mostly in keeping with the wet organizations' desire to show that this was an historic moment far more important for the freedom of choice it restored to the public. In New Orleans cannons were shot off, whistles blown and city-wide parades held to greet repeal. Boston bars, permitted by lenient local authorities to stock up with legal booze into the night, were so packed by ten o'clock that a latecomer was lucky to get inside the doors, much less get a drink. The next day there were long lines of 100 and more people in front of liquor stores from early morning until closing..." The Woman of the Revolution (Coronet Magazine, 1959)"Without Haydée Sanatamaría (1922 – 1980), the [Cuban] revolution might never have been. She was the actual founder of the freedom movement known as the 26th of July. Haydée Sanatamaría was known to Cubans simply as Maria. | 
